‘… the marketing and business process for creating and distributing valuable and compelling content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customers action.’

The days of outbound marketing are now over, and content marketing is forging the way for a new and innovative marketing strategy.

Blog posts, editorials, interviews, breaking news, videos; there are endless ways to generate effective content. Target this at the correct audience and not only will you develop a conversation with your readers, but through inciteful and useful content, you will also establish a loyal customer base.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, a staggering 91% of businesses use content marketing no matter their size or orientation towards B2C or B2B. Your potential business is waiting, can you afford to be missing out?

In this edition of the ‘The Experts Guide to Events’, our content writer, Natasha, providers her best ways to change your marketing strategy through content.

‘BEGIN WITH DRAWING UP A CONTENT PLAN’

Content marketing has never been more important and prevalent. People no longer respond to direct sales-focused advertisements; they need more from the brands they are wanting to use. As of 2016, 615 million devices were blocking adds meaning you need a new way to reach your target audience. The answer is content marketing.

Start with the basics, sit down and take the time to draw up your content plan. Think about topics relating to your industry, global and company news, as well as any interests or problems that your audience may have.

Once you have a list of topics that you are wanting to cover, add them to your content plan organising them seasonally.

How long you pre-plan your content for is entirely up to you. At our central London events venue, our content plan is twelve weeks long to ensure that we cover a variety of topics whilst keeping the material relevant.

‘RESEARCH AND GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE’

The key difference between generic content publication and a defined content marketing plan is the end goal of securing retainable business. Without defining the correct target audience this will not be achieved.

‘MAKE YOUR CONTENT VALUABLE AND COMPELLING’

Once your target audience is defined and you understand what they want to know, the content must be ‘valuable and compelling’. Although it goes against every marketing instinct, do not force or oversell your product within your content!

Instead, offer your readers new, exciting and must-read articles that they cannot get enough of. Add value to your content by putting yourself in their shoes - ask ‘what’s in it for me’. Supply them with industry secrets, how to tips and breaking news, or all of which will improve their life in some way.

By becoming their primary and trusted media source they will, in turn, come to trust your own business; using your product when needed and always returning for repeat custom.

‘USER GENERATED CONTENT CAN'T BE BEATEN’

To truly move your audience and fully gain their trust, work on your collection of user generated content. Hearing stories of people’s real-life experiences will compel your readers to continue using your product.

The best example of this is Coca-Cola. Now a media company who happen to sell drinks, their dedication towards User Generated Content is revolutionary. Their most recent marketing strategy, ‘Content 2020’, took the marketing world by storm.

In this plan, they aim to change the world through a dedication to sustainability and ‘liquid storytelling’ of peoples own experiences. Go on their website and you will be greeted by a wall of valuable and compelling content from their own customers. This cannot be beaten!

Encourage your attendees at events to post their own thoughts and content which you can gather add to your content.

‘REFINE AND REVIEW YOUR WORK’

It’s not enough to distribute your content without reviewing what does and does not work. Analyse which articles get the most engagement and click-throughs for an indication of what your audience prefer to hear about.

What channel you post on, what time of day, the topic and type of content. Many factors come into play to decide what content is the most successful.

To ensure that you are always creating effective content, test every possibility to establish your own formula that is guaranteed to work.